María Laura Pérez Gras
These poems were first published in Spanish in El tiempo usurpado, Corregidor (2022). The poet has translated them to English exclusively for The Aleph Review.
I
Every step in the night
is a stolen instant
to the stillness of the house
to the silence of the world.
I hesitate between the bed
and the sofa
but I walk.
Is it reminiscence
of the hammock in the garden?
Of the dance in the womb?
Or is it the memory of water,
the ebb and flow of the tides,
under the whims of the moon?
I walk
with no counterpoint
without resistance or destiny.
I run away from myself
in the sleepless night
to the beat of the breathing
of those who sleep.
The children, the husband,
the dog,
the plants.
I flee from time,
who also walks
and pursues me,
shameless.
II
When the morning moves forward
on the floor tiles
and the furniture recovers its colour
and its shape,
tiredness oppresses me
my temples
the nape of my neck
my whole body
and I collapse
on the half of the bed
that awaits
with open jaws.
I give in, surrendered.
The mattress crunches me
and nothing is left
to get me up
until the end of the morning.
VII
The man in the mask
warns us about
some scarce supply
every time he comes back to the house.
Children play zombies
barricaded in the bedrooms.
The fallen sick
come back from the dead
to infect the living
with the plague.
Laughter is replaced by screaming
during the day
and overnight.
Nightmares
sleepwalk
to keep me up at night
tangling time
erasing the steps of a routine
that I could no longer grasp.
We have lunch in the middle of the afternoon.
Class schedules
get confused
or get lost
in the drawers of the socks
that I forgot to wash.
We have dinner with what's left.
No one reads stories
anymore
before going to bed.
The garbage bags await,
while a group
of fat cockroaches
feast away.
XIII
We lost access
to the only tap
with water.
I don't say anything
for hours.
Words are no longer useful.
They cannot be ingested
or heated.
Nor do they help to understand.
Why hasn't he returned?
The man with his prey?
Did he get lost in the mob
of hungry youths?
Has he got stolen
the hunt of the day?
Is he dead?
From cold, hunger,
fear?
Or just
dead?
Children play
as cavemen.
Growl in a language
unknown
half-naked by day
shivering at night.
They paint the walls with crayons
and get surprised
at the faltering shadows
projected by
the last fires
of the last candles.
XVII
If I could grow
a shell
on my back
I would remain
still
listening
to my own nostalgia for the sea.
I would wait
for the tide to rise
to let me go.
I would recite a hymn of my own
like an echo,
a mantra:
"Silent time chest,
cradle of life,
infinite sea,
receive me in the deep sanctuary
of your waters.
I want to be a fish again.
become algae,
coral, rock, air.
I want to witness the meeting
between nothingness and being,
recover tomorrow,
regain hope".
XI
We have been living for months
on the islands of the river
in the generous delta
of clay
and the sun.
During the confinement of men
Nature was liberated
of poisons.
With famine
The young ran away
In stampede
from the blindness
of their elders.
And they found in the delta
the shelter of mud.
They chased away the monsters
of the wetlands.
They organized the islanders.
Old custodians
of the sacred soil
taught them how to cultivate the land
and to fish with their hands.
Now my children
feed me
like a wounded sparrow
that no longer flies.
XX
I'm in the land
of the jauja or the cucaña.
Fish jump into the baskets
that we left on the shore.
Oranges
go from flower to fruit
in a few hours
and walnut trees ripen
before being seed.
Quails and geese
leave bunches of eggs
inside the shoes
waiting for dawn
under the shelter of the alders.
Sunsets are violet
or red as clay
and the nights
more celestial
than all the other heavens.
Translucent
water
washes children's heads
who are born
with every moon
from the riverbed.
Millions of fireflies
light the way
towards this network
of dream catchers
made of river threads
island ridges
and trails.
Thus
from time to time
we are reached
by a wandering male
confused
pilgrim of the continent.
Thus
I feed my hope
that you´ll forget the hunt
abandon the prey
and get here,
my love,
empty-handed,
feet of clay,
so that you can
heal as well
from the abuse of men
and learn
the song of the clan.
María Laura Pérez Gras was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1978. She is a PhD in literature and researcher at CONICET. She is a professor of Argentine literature at the Universidad del Salvador, where she is the head of the Doctorate in Literature and research groups on Argentine literature. Her many academic publications include the book Relatos de cautiverio (2013) and the volumes of the critical edition Cautiverio y prisión de Santiago Avendaño (2018-2022). Her first novel, El único refugio, was published in 2019 by Ediciones Corregidor. Her first book of poetry, El tiempo usurpado (The Usurped Time), belongs to the new collection in Ediciones Corregidor of contemporary poetry.
Romina Santos is a visual artist, printmaker and teacher of Visual Arts. She lives in Patagonia, Argentina. Her illustrations and engravings are included in various digital and paper publications. She is the author of the cover art of books and albums of artists from Patagonia. She has shown her work in individual and collective exhibitions in different cities of the country. She is a member of the artists’ collective Fish in the desert. The engraving Durazno (Peach), from the series based on the collection of poems El coloquio de las plantas, by Luciana Mellado, is one of her most recent works.
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